Contemporary philosophy of science and its application to recent problems in public policy and education. Positivism, instrumentalism, realism, and their roots in natural science. The demarcation criterion and the creationist controversy. Values debates, rationality, and the emerging information and decision sciences. Structure and evolution of theories, and their cognitive status. Readings from such writers as Duhem, Russell, Einstein, Bohr, Bridgman, Nagel, Popper, Kuhn, S. Gould, H. Simon.